Warren Murphy - Unite and Conquer

"State this mission."

"You all know about Subcomandante Verapaz."

Eyes hardened at the despised name.

"Good. I've been sent to take him out. Cold. Savvy?"

"Jou are to kill him?"

"The Extinguisher doesn't merely kill. He extinguishes."

"Can jou prove jou are Blaize Fury?" the chief customs man asked in a guarded tone.

The Extinguisher lifted his arms. "ID cards in the band of my pants."

He was quickly searched. They found the backup pistol before the tiny card case. It no longer mattered. They were all on the same side. Everybody knew that now.

The man who found the card case exploded in his excitement.

" iMadre de Dios! It is true! These cards proclaim him to be El Extinguirador. "

The customs official grabbed a card and read it quickly.

"But jou-jou are a myth!"

The Extinguisher allowed a cool, confident smile to warp his lips. "Camouflage. If people think I don't exist, they drop their guard. Then I move in for the kill."

"Jou mean the extinguish, do jou not?" an impressed customs man said.

The chief interrogator snapped, "Who sends jou after the insurgent, Verapaz?"

"I'm not at liberty to divulge the name of my employer. You understand. Deniability."

"Jou must tell us this thing."

"Sorry. It's a need-to-know kind of deal."

"Then jou are under arrest."

"Are you shitting me? We're on the same team."

This time all four side arms were out of leather and aimed at him. One trembled in the hand of the man who pointed it.

"Jou will place your hand at your back, Senor El Extinguirador. "

"Look, you don't want to do this. Just let me through, and Verapaz will be a bad memory inside of forty-eight hours."

"Jou will be turned over to the Federal Judicial Police for further questioning and disposal."

"Look, how much will it cost for you guys to look the other way?"

Interest flickered in the senior customs officer's dark eyes.

"How much have jou in mind, senor?"

"There's three hundred bucks in my wallet. Take half."

While the guns kept him at bay, a hand fished his wallet from the inner pocket of his gray sport coat.

"It is true, there is three hundred American dollars here."

The senior customs official said something in Spanish, and the money was quickly divided into two unequal piles.

Seeing this, the Extinguisher began to relax. His strong, angular face had a slight sheen of tension upon it.

The senior customs man took the larger pile while the other was divided equally among his subordinates. Then the wallet was returned to the inner jacket pocket. Its weight no longer tugged at the coat's fabric.

"You can't do that. How will I pay my way to Chiapas?"

"Jou will not. Jou will instead cool your boots in a FJP cell."

"You're making a big mistake here," the Extinguisher protested as the cold steel handcuffs were clamped to his unresisting wrists.

"It is jou who have made the mistake, coming to Mexico intent upon mischief as jou have."

"You want this whole country to careen into civil war?"

"Being the man who captured the much-wanted Blaize Fury is more important to me today. I will worry about civil war manana. "

They led him out of the terminal and into the stagnant, smoky air of Mexico City. It tasted foul. But not as foul as the betrayal raising his gorge.

The Extinguisher had been captured. Well, it had happened before. It was always temporary. There wasn't a prison built that could hold him for long.

There was an olive green Light Armored Vehicle waiting at the curb, and he was loaded into this. He noticed the ground was cracked in spots and wondered if the entire country was this badly maintained. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the Extinguisher recalled something the airline captain had announced about the present emergency. He had a really thick accent, so he hadn't paid much attention. Mexico was always having problems anyway.

As he stepped into the back, the Extinguisher supressed a thin smile of contempt. The LAV was small and toylike compared to the Armored Personnel Carriers of major powers. US. police SWAT teams had LAVs exactly like this. They were a joke. Their armor wouldn't turn a hollowpoint slug.

The doors clanged shut, and the LAV moved into traffic.

On the other side of the LAV interior, two brownuniformed soldiers sat as stony faced as Aztec idols.

"You guys always look this happy?" he asked.

They said nothing. Their faces were a dark mask.

"Screw you mothers, then."

They said nothing to that. Only then did the Extinguisher realize they spoke no English.

The traffic sounds were horrendous. Horns honked and blared, and the air coming through the body armor smelled of car exhaust and sulphur. He wondered if it was a muffler hole, or the smog that hung in the Valley of Mexico like a perpetual shroud of death.

The LAV rattled and jounced as it moved through the stop-and-go traffic. It seemed to hit a light every hundred yards.

On the floor the Extinguisher's duffel bag sat unzipped. A soldier noticed the bright-colored packages and reached down to help himself to one.

Seeing this, the other soldado decided he couldn't be left out. He took up the rucksack and began rummaging through it.

"Hey! That's not your property."

They pointedly ignored him as they stripped the "presents" of their colorful metallic paper wrapping.

Quickly the true nature of the contents was revealed.

They were soldiers and knew armament. They began to assemble the pieces one by one, as if doing a puzzle. The dreaded Hellfire supermachine pistol slowly took shape.

"That's right, you dillweeds. Put it together. Make it easy for me."

The LAV stopped at a light. Cross traffic hummed all around. The gun ports were closed, so surreptitious visual recon was impossible.

Abruptly the LAV started rocking on its springs. It started as a side-to-side rocking, then shifted to a vertical bouncing. The LAV began pogoing. Everyone grabbed for something to hold on to. Except the Extinguisher, whose hands were pinioned at his back.

"What the hell's going on here?" he growled.

The soldiers swapped startled looks. One dropped the half-assembled machine pistol.

"Ay!"

The LAV kept rocking. Outside, something shattered. It sounded like glass. More glass shattered. And suddenly it seemed as if every mirror in the universe was breaking all at once.

One soldier screamed out a word. "iTemblor!"

"What?"

"Temblor de tierra!"

The other soldier screamed, "Terremoto! Terremoto!"

"Say it in English, will you?"

"Terremoto!"

The rocking grew more violent. The Extinguisher's head collided with the LAV roof.

"Ow!"

And the two soldados jumped from their seats, throwing open the doors and evacuating the LAV.

"Wait! What's going on?"

The LAV was literally bouncing on its tires now.

The cacophony of Mexico City took on a new ferocious quality. Men screamed. Woman wailed. Glass shattered. Something like stone cracking turned into a protracted splintery rumble.

As if a blind giant were pushing it around, the LAV started swinging on its braked tires. Visible through the open back door, a city falling into chaos was revealed.

"Holy shit! The mother of all earthquakes!"

The Extinguisher sprang into action. He dived for the ground. It shook hard enough to rattle his teeth. Flat on his stomach, he looked around, sizing up the situation.

Almost at once, he decided to get back into the LAV. It looked like the safest thing for miles around.

Outside, as the city shook itself, a thunderous roar came from due southeast. He got down on the cold floor and recovered his weapon by feel. Fingering a thin steel pick from its butt receptacle, he inserted it into the handcuff lock and tried to pick the lock.